Loss
by The RyRy
Summary: Ji Min thinks about what he's done to Jack, and Jack disagrees with him. Following the events of 51107.


Author's Note: This is a short fic that just jumped on me while watching this past week's _The Young and the Restless_. I haven't written soap!fic before, but here's a short bit in which Ji Min angsts about what he's done to Jack.

* * *

_Loss_

Ji Min hated what he was doing. He hated standing Jill up for one dinner – and that was nothing compared to how he felt about leading her on all this time. Their time in the boardroom two weeks ago had been misplaced passion, and Ji Min knew this and it tormented him. Jill had gotten the wrong idea, and Ji Min wondered if he had too.

Jill had just left, and Ji Min watched the door close behind her. He knew he had to focus on the numbers, had to get the sales projections to Hong Kong before the day was out, but every time he looked at the name _Jabot_, he felt sick to his stomach.

_Jack._ Ji Min had come to know the man better than he had imagined – too well, he had realized. When he had agreed for this job – no, this underhanded business deal that he knew the scale of only too late -- the handsome businessman had promised him that he would keep his distance, that Ji Min would handle the company, that Jack himself would keep his distance and simply watch over the proceedings. Ji Min had possessed no earthly idea that it would ever come to this.

Every day he saw him, and every day it seemed like Jack exerted his power over him. Ji Min hated that, even more than he hated leading Jill on.

_Jabot_. His eyes scanned the letters, a portion of Jack's own name – actually, his father's, as Ji Min knew well by now – there to remind him of who owned him.

…and who he had betrayed.

Jack had left the office, furious, even after Ji Min tried to calm him by calling security, by blaming it on a bug. Victor knew that Jack owned Jabot, and that could put Jack in prison. And Ji Min – he cursed his own name – had helped it come about.

He felt his inside jacket pocket pressing against his chest, like it was bearing a heavy weight against his heart. The recorder had been there, the horrible device that had incriminated his boss, his friend, his _Jack_…

Ji Min had tried to reconcile with himself. He remembered the words of his father, _You need answer to no one._ Did he need to answer to Jack? No. The man had swindled him, had lied to him, had misled him… but Ji Min couldn't believe any of that either. When Jack had approached him about this idea, Ji Min had known. There was no mistaking the man's words – he wanted to use House of Kim to buy Jabot, simply because he wanted to own his father's company. Ji Min had thought it a noble cause, but that was before he came here and realized all the people that Jack had lied to.

Including himself.

_Jabot._ Those damn letters, this damn company, that damn Jack! Why did Ji Min feel so terrible about betraying him? Yes, the man had trusted him, but for what? For doing his dirty work, for being his cover man? Ji Min didn't want any of that. He had betrayed people before, but this… this was somehow different.

Ji Min had felt a very familiar stab of emotion after handing that recorder over to Victor. This emotion was the same one he'd felt when he relocated from Hong Kong to Genoa City. He hadn't had a name to put on it then, but now he had an idea of what it was. _Loss_.

Even though he'd gained one of the most powerful companies in the United States, Ji Min had felt the loss of his familiar life in Hong Kong, something he had grown used to. Did he feel the same way about Jack now? Had he grown used to Jack?

No, Ji Min thought, but as he looked up at Jack entering the board room, he instantly knew he was wrong.

"You," Jack started accusingly. "Do you have anything for me today?"

"Security checked the room," Ji Min answered, too quickly and he knew it. "They found a security camera that we didn't know about, in the wall over there." Ji Min didn't want to think about what that security camera had caught on tape after hours. "The recording device could have been hidden there."

"Or it could have been in your pocket," Jack asserted. "And you could have betrayed me."

More lies were the only thing that could save him, Ji Min knew. He knew it and he hated it. "Jack, I'm not your enemy. I am in as much trouble as you are here."

"It doesn't matter anyway," Jack answered as Ji Min rose from his chair. "I'm selling Jabot back to Katherine Chancellor."

"You… what?" Ji Min couldn't believe his ears. "You're selling my company?"

"Yours?" Jack replied quickly. "Jabot was mine, in case you've forgotten, and I'm paying for my sins now."

"And so I, and House of Kim, have to pay for your sins too?"

"You're part of my sins!"

Ji Min had never seen this kind of emotion in Jack before. He wasn't angry – an expression that Ji Min had been on the receiving end of a time or two – but he was… what was this?

Was it… loss?

"Jack," Ji Min said, crossing the room to stand at the other man's side. In the process, he closed the door of the board room the final few millimeters until it clicked shut. "Why don't you sell House of Kim back to me? Then we all benefit."

"Then I'll be out of a job, a lost businessman again—" Jack turned to face Ji Min. "And even with this race for Senate, I need a foundation. This scandal could ruin my political career."

"So sell it back to me," Ji Min repeated. "The money could go toward your political career." Suddenly, he had an idea. Not being a citizen of the United States, Ji Min wasn't certain how the political system worked. He did know, however, that candidates needed a lot of money. "Or, sell House of Kim back to me, and I'll contribute to your campaign."

"Contributions from the company that I just sold? That seems a bit shady—"

Ji Min had to take control of the situation. "No, from me. As your friend and as a fellow businessman."

"My _friend_, is that what you are?" Jack's laugh grated on Ji Min's nerves. "I think that's hardly the word."

"Well then sell House of Kim to Katherine Chancellor, and then I'll buy it back." Ji Min proposed, ignoring Jack's confusion about their relationship. "We will figure out a way to get through this."

"No, not _we_," Jack said. "I. I will figure out a way to get through this, without your help."

Ji Min watched as Jack left the board room in an emotional flurry. Ji Min still couldn't place that emotion on Jack, but he could recognize it within himself. _Loss._ Jack was going to lose his company, lose his Senate seat, lose his friends…

Even though he had just betrayed Jack, Ji Min vowed that Jack would never lose _him_.


End file.
